Catholic Sensibility

I just got around to Cynthia Jarvis’ reflections on the Gospel reading for August 7 (I moved this week, you see). Jarvis, a Presbyterian minister, explores the fear that “strikes the hearts of Jesus' disciples when they see him walking toward them on the water.” The Lectionary associated this fear with the “emotions of Joseph's brothers, who fear and hate their brother's favored status.” We fear anything, Rev Jarvis says, that seems to anticipate our own powerlessness and defeat, and so “we make life an exercise in securing ourselves against our insecurities.” And, as she quotes Miroslav Volf as saying, "Others become scapegoats, concocted from our own shadows as repositories for our sins and weaknesses [and fears] so we can relish the illusion of our sinlessness and strength." Because of the clear danger of this illusion, the Church must cultivate a sense of insecurity. Jean Vanier says, “The poor are at the heart of the church, the poor are at the heart of humanity. They are not meant to be pushed aside. And of course this revolution means a complete disordering of the order. It's the breaking down of the fortress of prejudice, it's bringing humanity into one, it's breaking down the walls, and of course all these walls that have been created are the walls of security. It's the security of prejudice: I know who I am and I'm powerful. But in some way Jesus is breaking all this down to bring us into the insecurity of communion, the insecurity of love, the insecurity where God is present and calling us all forth. ...” So it is the hidden presence of Jesus in the poor, broken, and suffering that leads us past our fears of powerlessness and defeat - now exposed as quite literally Godless - into the loving insecurity of a communion formed by the self-emptying of the Son of God’s broken body on the Cross. And the New Testament is not at all subtle in its placing of the poor, broken, and suffering within the eschatological communion of the Church. But it is easy to miss this “disordering of the order.” An article in the most recent Journal of Biblical Literature by the Baptist exegete Mikael C. Parsons can help us reexamine the healing of the lame man in Acts 3-4 to better grasp the “insecurity of communion.” Dr Parsons begins by reminding us that “In the ancient world, it was commonplace to associate outer physical characteristics with inner moral qualities; it was a world in which it was assumed that you can, as it were, judge a book by its cover.” The pseudo-Aristotelian tractate Physiognomica told its readers that “soul and body react on each other; when the character of the soul changes, it changes also the form of the body, and conversely, when the form of the body changes, it changes the character of the soul.” This “physiognomic consciousness” would not bode well for a lame man, who would inevitably be seen as, in Volf’s words, a repository “for our sins and weaknesses [and fears].” But, apart from Acts 3-4, we see St Luke undermining the traditional understanding’s scapegoating to show the admission of the physically imperfect – a bent woman (Luke 13), the notably small Zacchaeus (19), and an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8) - into the eschatological community. When reminding us that it is membership in this eschatological community that is “the true basis of an imperishable dignity, a dignity which also resists the defeat of death," John Paul II had to note that “Many handicapped people who are frail and frequently embarrassed by the consciousness of their disability, feel that their difficulties are ignored, and they are forced to lead a de facto life of marginalization.” But the disabled were even more marginalized in antiquity. Luke specifically tells us that the lame man’s “feet” and “ankles” were in need of healing (these terms, incidentally, explain why earlier exegetes thought he was a medical doctor). The tractate Physiognomica claimed, “Those who have strong and well-jointed ankles are brave in character; witness the male sex. Those who have fleshy and ill-jointed ankles are weak in character; witness the female sex.” A later text (Physiognomonica) said that “Perfect solid ankles belong to a noble man, those which are soft and smooth to a more unmanly man and those which are very thin to a cowardly and intemperate man. All those who have thick ankles, thick heels, fleshy feet, stubby toes and thick calves are for the most part stupid or mad.” There are similar comments about feet – the lame man’s handicap would have been seen as evidence of a weak character, an outer sign of the cowardice and effeminacy that all males desperately fear characterize themselves. When Peter refers to the lame man in Acts 4:9, he calls him what the NAB renders as “a cripple,” but what literally means “weak man.” But an ancient audience wouldn’t even have needed that sort of cue. They were used to seeing the disabled as subjects of ridicule. Dr Parsons quotes the work of Robert Garland, “Crippled dancers feature prominently on Corinthian pots, as, for instance, on an alabastron which depicts a padded dancer with clubbed feet who is about to have his leg pulled away by another danger – to the side-splitting laughter no doubt of the drinkers witnessing this prank” (but you knew this already from reading Homer’s accounts of Hephaistos and Thersites). The lame man might have been excluded from the first-century temple – he seems to have been placed in a marginal area “at the gate of the temple” (4:2), and the Septuagint rendered the end of 2 Sam 5:8, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house of the Lord.” In the surrounding pagan world, to be sure, admission to the priesthood was often reserved in Pausanius’ examples to “the boy who won the beauty contest” and the young man “who was himself good-looking and strong.” This is how an illusion of “sinlessness and strength” is preserved. But then the marginalized lame man is healed. In fact, “He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with Peter and John, walking and jumping and praising God” (4:13). St John Chrysostom noted that he shares in the “boldness” that the Apostles would later show before the leaders, elders, and scribes. His healing is nothing less than a sign of the establishment of the coming of God – Isaiah had prophesized that “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer” (35:6). Now, Parsons cautions us, “If this were the whole story, then it would appear that Luke had followed the conventions of physiognomy to a tee. The lame, morally weak man becomes a whole, morally bold man. But this is not all there is to Luke’s story.” We need to pay more attention to the formerly lame man’s deeply subversive leaping. The truly masculine just didn’t leap about. It wasn’t done. As one physiognomist wrote, you could detect the effeminate quite easily - “his loins do not hold still, and his slack limbs never stay in one position. He minces along with little jumping steps.” Later Christian texts actually continue this theme – Clement writes, “A noble man should bear no sign of effeminacy upon his face or any other portion of his body. Nor should the disgrace of unmanliness ever be found in his movements or his posture.” The lame man has been given the faith that makes him a member of the Body of Christ – he “praises God” (see Lk 17:18-19) – but then he immediately acts in a rather unmanly way. St Luke is telling us that outward signs of masculine character do not matter. The lame man has faith, and, in a symbolic way, the miraculous strengthening of his feet and ankles will let him be on the “Way” that is Christianity (Acts 9:2). If we had judged him poorly because of his handicap earlier, we were wrong – our scapegoat has a place in God’s kingdom. If we judge him poorly because of his effeminate leaping, we are still wrong – he still has the place in God’s kingdom that gives him, as John Paul II said, an “imperishable dignity.” He has left us behind. Physiognomy is relativized by faith. That process described by Volf – “Others become scapegoats, concocted from our own shadows as repositories for our sins and weaknesses [and fears] so we can relish the illusion of our sinlessness and strength" – is revealed as a sham. The Kingdom of God is a community of bent women, small men, eunuch, and those who walk and jump as they praise God. But can we move past our fears to embrace the insecurity of this blessed community?